Alan Peat
THE THROUGHPUT at the Port of Durban's container terminal has almost trebled in the past two decades.
From what now seems a rather feeble total of 310 102 TEU (twenty foot equivalent units) movements handled by the terminal in 1980, the figure broke the one million mark in 1999 and reached 1 169 376 last year.
The really significant period of growth has been in the last decade, since SA's move to democracy - and, from a total of 522 374 TEU moves in 1990, the figure has now more than doubled.
In the five years from 1995 to 2000, the number has grown at an average of 5.79% a year, although the 14.5% growth from 1999-to-2000 distorts that average somewhat.
But Portnet's Durban marketing manager, Ronnie Holtshausen, expects onward growth to be about the 3% per annum mark - levelling off at the international growth rate for sea cargo.
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